Alison Bechdel: Conversations

Due to the huge success of her graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic in 2006 and its subsequent Tony Award–winning musical adaptation in 2009, Alison Bechdel (b. 1960) has recently become a household name. However, Bechdel, who has won numerous awards including a MacArthur Fellowship, has been writing and drawing comics since the early 1980s. Her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (DTWOF) stood out as one of the first to depict lesbians in popular culture and is widely hailed as an essential LGBTQ resource.

It is also from this comic strip that the wildly popular Bechdel Test—a test to gauge positive female representation in film—obtained its name. While DTWOF secured Bechdel’s role in the comics world and queer community long before her mainstream success, Bechdel now experiences notoriety that few comics artists ever achieve and that women cartoonists have never attained.

Spanning from 1990 to 2017, Alison Bechdel: Conversations collects twelve interviews that illustrate how Bechdel uses her own life, relationships, and contemporary events to expose the world to what she has referred to as the “fringes of acceptability”—the comics genre as well as queer culture and identity. These interviews reveal her intentionality in the use of characters, plots, structure, and cartooning to draw her readers toward disrupting the status quo.

Starting with her earliest interviews on public access television and in little-known comics and queer presses, Rachel R. Martin traces Bechdel’s career from her days with DTWOF to her popularity with Fun Home and Are You My Mother? This volume includes her “one-off” DTWOF strips from November 2016 and March 2017 (not anthologized anywhere else) and in-depth discussions of her laborious creative process as well as upcoming projects.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Release date: Oct 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781496819284

Book preview

ALISON BECHDEL: CONVERSATIONS

Conversations with Comic Artists M.Thomas Inge, General Editor

Alison Bechdel: Conversations

Edited by Rachel R. Martin

University Press of Mississippi / Jackson

The University Press of Mississippi is the scholarly publishing agency of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning: Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi Valley State University, University of Mississippi, and University of Southern Mississippi.

www.upress.state.ms.us

The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of University Presses.

Copyright © 2018 by University Press of Mississippi

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Images courtesy of Alison Bechdel

First printing 2018

∞

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bechdel, Alison, 1960–interviewee. | Martin, Rachel R., editor.

Title: Alison Bechdel : conversations / edited by Rachel R. Martin.

Description: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2018] | Series: Conversations with comic artists | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2018028112 (print) | LCCN 2018032824 (ebook) | ISBN 9781496819284 (epub single) | ISBN 9781496819291 (epub institutional) | ISBN 9781496819307 (pdf single) | ISBN 9781496819314 (pdf institutional) | ISBN 9781496819260 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781496819277 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Bechdel, Alison, 1960–—Interviews. | Cartoonists—United States—Interviews. | LCGFT: Interviews.

Classification: LCC PN6727.B3757 (ebook) | LCC PN6727.B3757 Z46 2018 (print) | DDC 741.5/973—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018028112

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

Books by Alison Bechdel

Dykes to Watch Out For (1986) Firebrand Books

More Dykes to Watch Out For (1988) Firebrand Books

New, Improved! Dykes to Watch Out For (1990) Firebrand Books

Dykes to Watch Out For: The Sequel (1992) Firebrand Books

Spawn of Dykes to Watch Out For (1993) Firebrand Books

Unnatural Dykes to Watch Out For (1995) Firebrand Books

Hot, Throbbing Dykes to Watch Out For (1997) Firebrand Books

Split-Level Dykes to Watch Out For (1998) Firebrand Books

The Indelible Alison Bechdel: Confessions, Comix, and Miscellaneous Dykes to Watch Out For (1998) Firebrand Books

Post-Dykes to Watch Out For (2000) Firebrand Books

Dykes and Other Carbon-Based Life-Forms to Watch Out For (2003) Firebrand Books

Invasion of the Dykes to Watch Out For (2005) Firebrand Books

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006) Houghton Mifflin

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For (2008) Houghton Mifflin

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama (2012) Houghton Mifflin

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chronology

Interview with Alison Bechdel: Writer and Lesbian Cartoonist

Chris Dodge / 1990

Alison Bechdel

Anne Rubenstein / 1995

Sing Lesbian Cat, Fly Lesbian Seagull: Interview with Alison Bechdel

Wesley Joost / 2000

An Interview with Alison Bechdel

John Zuarino / 2007

Stuck in Vermont—Alison Bechdel

Eva Sollberger / 2008

A Conversation with Alison Bechdel

Roxanne Samer / 2010

Writers on the Fly: Alison Bechdel

Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature / 2010

The Rumpus Interview with Alison Bechdel—Sections II–X

MariNaomi / 2012

Book News: A Q&A with Alison Bechdel, Cartoonist and MacArthur Winner

Annalisa Quinn / 2014

Lesbian Cartoonist Alison Bechdel Countered Dad’s Secrecy by Being Out and Open

Terry Gross / 2015

Stuck in Vermont—Alison Bedchel’s Fun Home on Broadway

Eva Sollberger / 2015

Alison Bechdel, Onstage and on Recode Decode

Kara Swisher / 2017

Index

INTRODUCTION

In the introduction to The Best American Comics 2011, Alison Bechdel asks, If you have spent a long time resisting the status quo—whether it’s in art, society, or the political world—what happens when the status quo at last gives way? A universe of possibility opens up. Alison Bechdel stands in that universe of possibility. Thanks to the surprising success of her graphic memoirs, the Tony Award–winning musical adaptation of her graphic memoir Fun Home, and the honor of her being named a MacArthur Fellow, the status quo has been disrupted, and Bechdel has evolved from obscure queer culture icon to the mainstream’s favorite lesbian cartoonist.

In all of her work, from Dykes to Watch Out For (DTWOF) to her tragicomics, and throughout all of her interviews, Bechdel directly addresses themes of sexual orientation, gender identity, representation of women, and heteronormative family life in an effort to fulfill her life’s mission to unceasingly excavate the potsherd of truth from the sediment of convenience (Bechdel qtd. in Quinn) or, as she states early in her career, her subversive plot to undermine the universal male subject (Bechdel qtd. in Rubenstein). With her openly stated mission of disrupting the masculinist status quo, Alison Bechdel thrusts her personal experiences and life (as well as the lives of her family) into the political, public arena and likewise demonstrates that the political arena impacts people’s lives on a personal level. From 1983 through today, Bechdel’s body of cartooning embodies the feminist mantra that the personal is political and the political is personal.¹

Examining personal relationships provides an understanding of cultural politics, and possessing a clearer grasp of societal politics allows for a more nuanced understanding of our personal lives; Bechdel demonstrates this in her cartoons. Additionally, Alison’s work pushes cultural change, and thereby Bechdel is in a position to have her voice amplified because of the cultural change she created. In these simultaneous feedback loops (let’s call them together the Bechdel Feedback Loop), the more Alison writes her queer life into queer comics, the more her cartooning creates cultural and political space for writing like hers, for voices and genres like hers, and the more room her cartoons create, the more space there exists for her work (and work like hers). This loop continues to this same end.

Bechdel’s writing, drawing, cartooning pushes the boundaries of the status quo and opens up that universe of possibility for writers like herself, thereby opening up more cultural arenas for her own writing to abide. Her early work exists as a means of creating space for queer voices represented in media (albeit originally independent and queer presses); in creating avenues within the comic universe and popular culture for fringe voices, she begins to have more space for her own cartoons: as the years went on more and more presses sought out Alison to publish DTWOF within their pages. Residing within this now-available space for queer voices and comics that her early work makes possible, she pens Fun Home, which is successfully received and likewise creates even more room for her own and other queer voices and comic narrative. Through the opening of more cultural avenues in the mainstream for queer comics, Alison writes her next graphic memoir and so on. In this Bechdel Feedback Loop, her work simultaneously pushes cultural change and through that cultural change makes new spaces for her to write within. By forcing the status quo to budge, she creates a space where her own voice and the voice of those like hers can be heard (no longer silenced), allowing Alison Bechdel to move from obscure, underground lesbian cartoonist to mainstream memoirist.

Thrust into the spotlight, where she is now a household name and is recognized as she walks down the street, Alison Bechdel experiences notoriety that few comic artists ever achieve and that women comic artists have never seen. Prior to this, Bechdel broke upon the mainstream literary world with her graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006), which made it on to the New York Times bestsellers list and many 2006 Best Books of the Year lists. Her position in this space was cemented by her subsequent graphic memoir, another tragicomic, Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama (2012). Before these successes, Bechdel elicited recognition and prominence in popular culture analysis through what has been coined the Bechdel Test, which was taken from one strip of her epically long-running comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (1983–2008) and is used as a tool for judging representations of minorities in all aspects of popular culture (movies, literature, television shows, comics). And even prior to the wide acceptance and usage of the Bechdel Test, her bimonthly Dykes to Watch Out For secured Bechdel’s role in the comic world and queer community. Published regularly in nearly every lesbian, gay, and alternative magazine, newspaper, and journal, during its tenure DTWOF and its cast of characters reads as one part op-ed and one part Victorian novel (which were also published in serial form), making its author the most popular American cartoonist who you’ve never heard of (Rubenstein). However, the success of her tragicomic memoirs gave her notoriety and made her simply one of the most popular American cartoonists, moving her from a fringe cartoonist to a mainstream author.

Alison Bechdel’s purpose to disrupt not only the largely homogeneous form of comics but also mainstream America’s heteronormative ideals of family and gender leads her to the use of her own life and the lives of those around her, demonstrating a longstanding belief that the personal is political and the political is personal—a rallying cry of the feminist movement since the 1970s. In 2008, when discussing that notion, Bechdel joked, That’s my middle name—Personal is Political. Political is Personal, confessing that she did not become a political person until I realized I was a lesbian. I was just this oblivious middle-class, white kid who didn’t understand the structures of power or oppression or anything. My very existence became politicized for me, and that’s what made me see all these things (qtd. in Sollberger 2008). Because her very existence and personal identification as a lesbian fueled her politicism, her personal life as exposed in her work acts as a political force of change. By her making herself vulnerable and her family (and also to many extents the mainstream audience) uncomfortable, Alison Bechdel opens up her personal life to create an artistic and political voice for the often marginalized voices in fringe communities, moving from the already created space in the fringes of comics and culture, making her own coming-out and coming-of-age stories, the lives of her lesbian characters, and the genre of comics accessible and relatable to everyone, regardless of gender or sexuality. In this way she creates more room for her work to abide in the conventional populous.

In both of her memoirs, Fun Home and Are You My Mother?, Bechdel draws upon the connections between her own identity as a lesbian and her family relationships, and all of Bechdel’s cartoons appear autobiographical to some extent. She reveals in the 1990 interview with Chris Dodge, included in this collection, that the principle character of Mo in DTWOF is approximately 30 percent Alison and her personality scapegoat. In another interview with the Comics Journal, she states, Mo really is just sort of—me. Not in an autobiographical way. The strip isn’t about my life. But Mo sort of looks like me, we have similar backgrounds. Bechdel even sets DTWOF in a fictional city that mirrors Minneapolis, where she lived when she started the strip. Despite her use of personal matter as a source throughout her career, Bechdel admits early on that she feels it is dangerous to let her work get too autobiographical, because it tends to get her into trouble. She echoes this sentiment a few other times throughout the litany of interviews. The space afforded by society thus allowed Bechdel to bring in and expose lesbian voices and communities to an audience unaccustomed to seeing these bodies or hearing these voices, but the status quo still foreclosed the possibility of expressing Bechdel’s own personal life as a lesbian in the comic, in the written form, acknowledging that there’s something inherently hostile in putting your own narrative out there (Bechdel qtd. in Burkeman). While Bechdel has pushed the mainstream appreciation for comic works and wider acceptance of queer voices, she notes her work is not yet done. She recognizes that she still needs to open up more realms and push more boundaries forward.

Throughout the first twenty years of her cartooning career, Alison Bechdel suffered from lack of recognition by mainstream audiences and comic sellers for her outstanding series Dykes to Watch Out For. While always drawn to cartooning, drawing, and storytelling, Bechdel penned her first panels of DTWOF, a single panel (plate) that read Marianne, dissatisfied with her morning brew: Dykes to Watch Out For, plate no. 27, in the margins of a letter to a friend (Rubenstein). Her marginalized comics about marginalized women literally started in the margins of a letter. Bechdel continued to write more of these plates, labeling them all Dykes to Watch Out For. A friend convinced her to submit some of them to WomaNews, a feminist newspaper where said friend worked and Alison herself volunteered. The publication ran two of her DTWOF cartoons in their 1983 Lesbian Pride issue. After doing the one-panel form for a year for WomaNews, Bechdel eventually shifted to strips, all of which depicted various aspects of lesbian lives and queer culture. Continuing under the name Dykes to Watch Out For, in 1987, the strip transitioned again, this time moving to the serialized format with recurring characters and community, which Bechdel continued until the 2008 hiatus and resumed with the strip’s return in 2016. Through the single panels and separate strips, Alison created a space and a desire for a more continuous community narrative of queer folks in serialized comics. The consistent cast of dykes allowed Bechdel to demonstrate how these women (and women like them) moved through the world, maintained personal relationships, and managed within a politicized society throughout the late 1980s, ’90s, and the early 2000s; they were just like everyone else. The central character from 1987 forward is Mo (Monica) Testa. While originally claiming that Mo was only about 30 percent her, Bechdel later admits that Mo represents all of Alison’s anxiety, cultural and political tendencies, interests, and loves; the character and the cartoonist even look alike and at one point both worked similar jobs at lesbian presses. In her interview with Ann Rubenstein in 1995, Bechdel described Mo as young white middle-class dyke, vaguely based on me. I tried to disguise her by giving her longer hair than I have, and glasses, but the resemblance is still pretty apparent. Mo is the extreme embodiment of the lesbian-feminist social conscience. The very words Bechdel uses to describe Mo (young white middle-class dyke) mirror the words Alison uses at other times to describe herself (lesbian … white middle-class kid). Through Mo and Mo’s interactions with her world and friends, Bechdel addresses and responds to the politics of the time, while giving her audience a glimpse into a queer community; she uses their personal relationships to examine cultural politics, while displaying the power of such on these lesbian friendships. However, this commentary on cultural politics and its connection to the personal abides under a thinly veiled guise of fiction.

While the character of Mo looks like and most directly reflects Bechdel, each of the other women in this cartoon represents a piece of Alison. Alongside Mo exists a spectrum of characters; the most regular characters other than Mo are the struggling professor Ginger, the activist Lois, and the environmental lawyer Clarice. Once Bechdel acknowledged the slippage of her autobiographical content in DTWOF, she leaned into the curve, causing the writing [to be] more complex. The relationships between the characters got more complex because I realized that I could write more like what my real life was like (Bechdel qtd. in Quinn). DTWOF exposed many readers possibly for the

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